About me

This blogname was derived from a satiric Arabic novel by the Palestinian Israeli Emile Habiby. In the ''The Secret Life of Saeed The Pessoptimist'' he uses absurdism as a weapon against the (ir)realities of daily life in Palestine/Israel. I consider it to be an example for how events in Israel/{Palestine best can be approached.
The subtitle is from a book by Dutch author Renate Rubinstein. In a way that is also still my motto.
My real name is Martin (Maarten Jan) Hijmans. I've been covering the ME since 1977 and have been a correspondent in Cairo. In 2018, I concluded the study 'Arabic language and culture' at the University of Amsterdam.
I started 'Abu Pessoptimist' in January 2009 out of anger about the onslaught of that month in Gaza. The other blog, The Pessoptmist, is meant to be a sister version in English. (En voor de Nederlandstaligen: ik wilde in november 2009 een tweede blog in het Engels beginnen en ontdekte te laat dat als je één account hebt, een profiel dan meteen ook voor allebei de blogs geldt. Vandaar dat het nu ineens in het Engels is... So sorry.)

Monday, December 26, 2016

Three and a half years into power after the
toppling of President Mohammed Morsi and taking charge of the country,
Sisi’s Egypt is witnessing the harshest crackdown in the 200-year
history of Egyptian media. Repression, destruction of equipment,
imprisonment and even death surround the profession.
Last week, the parliament passed a law on the “Institutional
Regulation of the Press and the Media,” which indicates creating three
regulatory bodies to oversee all of Egypt’s media outlets. Sisi himself
is to select the heads of these boards, according to Article 32.
One body is to supervise state-owned press organizations and select
their board chairmen and editors, another would oversee state-owned
audio-visual media, radio and digital media institutions, and last and
most crucial, the Higher Council for Media Regulation will regulate all
media outlets, audio-visual, digital or print — whether public or
private — in coordination with the other two bodies.
The law ignores Article 72 of the Egyptian Constitution that
indicates “the State shall ensure the independence of all state-owned
press institutions and media outlets, in a manner ensuring their
neutrality and presentation of all political and intellectual opinions,”
Yehia Kallash, the head of the Egyptian press syndicate, told
Al-Monitor.

Thursday, December 22, 2016

By Ellen Francis | BEIRUT
The Syrian army said it had retaken complete control of Aleppo on Thursday
after the last rebel fighters were evacuated from the city, handing
President Bashar al-Assad his biggest victory of the war. The
military said it had brought "the return of safety and security to the
city of Aleppo", ending four years of rebel resistance in the northern
Syrian city.
"This victory constitutes an important turning point," an army statement said. The
recapture of Aleppo is Assad's most important gain so far in a nearly
six-year-old war that claimed the lives of 300.000 people, but the fighting
is not over with large parts of the country still controlled by
insurgent and Islamist groups.
The last group of rebels and their families holed up in a small eastern
enclave of Aleppo were evacuated under a deal that gives the army and
its allies full control of the city, Syrian state television said.

Monday, December 19, 2016

Lebanon on Sunday acquired a new 30-minister government led by Saad al-Hariri, bringing together the entire political spectrum except for the Christian Phalangist party that rejected the portfolio it was offered.
The new cabinet, which was announced on state television, will keep Gebran Bassil as foreign minister, Ali Hassan Khalil
as finance minister and Nouhad Machnouk as interior minister.
New portfolios include an anti-corruption post and, for the first time, a minister of state for women's affairs. Hariri said the Phalangist Party had been offered a minister of state post but had turned it down.

Wednesday, December 14, 2016

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) 2016 has seen
a record number of journalists jailed worldwide, marking the worst year
on record with an unprecedented 259 behind bars. Egypt is listed as the third worst offender with 25 journalists in jail, preceded by China with 38 and Turkey with 81.
In its latest report,
published on Tuesday, the New York-based group writes that: “More
journalists are jailed around the world than at any time since the CPJ
began keeping detailed records in 1990, with Turkey accounting for nearly a third of the global total.”
The five countries at the top
of the list account for 68 percent of all journalists imprisoned
worldwide since December 1, 2016. This includes Ethiopia, and Eritrea.
This year’s statistics are a significant increase from the 199 journalists who were behind bars in 2015, and surpass the previous record of 232 imprisoned in 2012.
Turkey’s
high ranking this year is a result of an “ongoing crackdown that
accelerated after a failed coup attempt in July,” according to the
report. The government has increasingly imprisoned journalists seen as
sympathetic to exiled opposition cleric Fethullah Gülen or the attempted
coup.
Eight of Egypt’s 25 jailed journalists have been locked up
for more than three years, since the ouster of Islamist president
Mohamed Morsi on July 3, 2013. The remaining 17 have been imprisoned for
periods ranging from several weeks to years. This is an increase from
the 23 imprisoned in 2015, when Egypt was ranked the second worst jailer of journalists after China.
Some are linked to Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated newspapers like
Rassd, while several others are TV correspondents, freelance reporters
and photojournalists. Most are being detained in Cairo’s Tora Prison,
although some are being held in Alexandria, Port Said, Arish, Fayoum and
Gamasa, among others.

Sunday, December 11, 2016

(Foto AFP)
Turkey said on
Sunday that Kurdish militants may be responsible for the two bombs that
killed 38 people and wounded 155 in what looked to be a coordinated
attack on police outside a soccer stadium in Istanbul after a match
between two top teams. The
blasts on Saturday night - a car bomb outside the Vodafone Arena, home
to Istanbul's Besiktas soccer team, followed by a suicide bomb attack in
an adjacent park less than a minute later - shook a nation still trying
to recover from a series of deadly bombings this year in cities
including Istanbul and the capital Ankara.There
was no claim of responsibility, but Deputy Prime Minister Numan
Kurtulmus said early indications pointed to the outlawed Kurdistan
Workers Party (PKK), which has carried out a three-decade insurgency,
mainly in Turkey's largely Kurdish southeast. Ten people have been
detained so far, he said.

Friday, November 18, 2016

Egypt’s Court of Cassation revoked on Tuesday 14 november death sentences and
ordered retrials for ousted Islamist President Mohamed Morsi and other
Muslim Brotherhood leaders over the 2011 Wadi El-Natrunprison break case.
The court also revoked the death penalties against Muslim Brotherhood
Supreme Guide Mohamed Badie, and other MB figures including Brotherhood
deputy leader Rashad Bayoumy, and 2012's parliament speaker and MB
figure Saad El-Katatni. The court also cancelled life sentences for 21 others in the same case.
The defendants had been charged with "damaging and setting fire to
prison buildings," "murder," "attempted murder," "looting prison weapons
depots" and "releasing prisoners" while escaping from the prison
outside Cairo during the January 2011 uprising.
This was the only death sentence issued against Morsi to date.

Sunday, November 13, 2016

Human Rights Watch (HRW) notes that Iraqi Kurdisch peshmerga forces destroyed houses belonging to Arabs in areas the retook from IS in North Iraq / Kurdistan. It ought not to surprise anybody, after Iraq under Saddam for so many years sent Arabs northward with the intention to ''arabize'' Kurdish regions. But it still is disappointing. And of course totally illegal.
The 80-page HRW report, “Marked With An ‘X’: Iraqi Kurdish Forces’ Destruction of Villages, Homes in Conflict with ISIS,”looked at destruction of homes between September 2014 and May 2016 in
disputed areas of Kirkuk and Nineveh governorates, areas nominally under Iraqi government jurisdiction but under Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) control. The destruction, which took place after KRG Peshmerga forces routed Islamic State (also known as ISIS) fighters, targeted Arab homes while leaving Kurdish homes intact. KRG leaders have maintained that these are historically Kurdish areas that they intend to incorporate into the Kurdistan region.

Sunday, October 16, 2016

Syrian rebels
said they captured the village of Dabiq from Islamic State on Sunday,
forcing the jihadist group from a stronghold where it had promised to
fight a final, apocalyptic battle with the West.Its
defeat at Dabiq, long a mainstay of Islamic State's propaganda,
underscores the group's declining fortunes this year as it suffered
battlefield defeats in Syria and Iraq and lost a string of senior
leaders in targeted air strikes. The
group, whose lightning advance through swathes of the two countries and
declaration that it had established a new caliphate stunned world
leaders in 2014, is now girding for an offensive against Iraq's Mosul,
its most prized possession. The
rebels, backed by Turkish tanks and warplanes, took Dabiq and
neighboring Soran after clashes on Sunday morning, said Ahmed Osman,
head of the Sultan Murad group, one of the Free Syrian Army (FSA)
factions involved in the fighting.

Tuesday, August 23, 2016

Shi’ite militias
in Iraq detained, tortured and abused far more Sunni civilians during
the American-backed capture of the town of Falluja in June than U.S.
officials have publicly acknowledged, Reuters has found.More
than 700 Sunni men and boys are still missing more than two months
after the Islamic State stronghold fell. The abuses occurred despite
U.S. efforts to restrict the militias' role in the operation, including
threatening to withdraw American air support, according to U.S. and
Iraqi officials.The U.S. efforts
had little effect. Shi’ite militias did not pull back from Falluja,
participated in looting there and now vow to defy any American effort to
limit their role in coming operations against Islamic State.All
told, militia fighters killed at least 66 Sunni males and abused at
least 1,500 others fleeing the Falluja area, according to interviews
with more than 20 survivors, tribal leaders, Iraqi politicians and
Western diplomats. They said men
were shot, beaten with rubber hoses and in several cases beheaded. Their
accounts were supported by a Reuters review of an investigation by
local Iraqi authorities and video testimony and photographs of survivors
taken immediately after their release.

Friday, August 19, 2016

South Sudan's former vice president and opposition leader Riek Machar
"is in the care" of the authorities in the neighbouring Democratic
Republic of Congo (DRC), the United Nations has said, several weeks
after he withdrew from the capital Juba during fierce fighting with government troops.
The news on Thursday came after a statement by the leadership of the
SPLA In Opposition party said Machar had left South Sudan on Wednesday
to a "safe country within the region", without giving any further
details on his exact whereabouts.
"We were aware yesterday of the presence of Riek Machar in DRC," UN spokesman Farhan Haq said on Thursday.
Machar led a two-year rebellion against forces loyal to his longtime rival President Salva Kiir before the two sides reached a peace deal in August 2015. Under the deal, Machar returned to Juba in April to resume his role as vice president.
But fighting flared last month, leading Machar to withdraw with his forces from Juba around mid-July.
Since the outbreak of fighting in July, Kiir has sacked Machar from
his post and appointed Taban Deng Gai, a former opposition negotiator
who broke ranks with Machar, as vice president.

Sunday, August 14, 2016

Thousands of displaced residents streamed back into the northern Syrian town of
Manbij on Saturday after U.S.-backed fighters ousted the last Islamic
State militants from their former stronghold, residents and U.S. allies
said.The U.S.-backed Syria Democratic Forces (SDF) announced on Friday they had seized full control
of the city near the Turkish border.
Hundreds of cars and vehicles carrying families and their belongings flocked
into the city from makeshift camps and villages in the countryside,
where many of the city's residents took shelter during the two-month
campaign en shops reopened. The militants were finally ousted after a
deal was reached on Friday that secured their departure together with
some 2,000 civilians, believed to have been their relatives, toward
their stronghold of Jarablus near the border with Turkey. It was not clear whether those leaving were hostages or had left voluntarily, a Kurdish source said.
The SDF, formed last year by recruiting Arabs to join forces with the
powerful YPG Kurdish militia, launched an offensive with the support of
U.S.-led strikes at the end of May to remove Islamic State from areas it
controls along the Turkish border.

Members of Yemen's parliament convened in the capital Sanaa
on Saturday for the first time since a civil war began almost two years
ago, in a move aimed at bolstering the rebel Houthi movement and
challenging the Saudi-backed exiled government.

The armed Houthis
and their allies in the General People's Congress (GPC) party headed by
powerful ex-president Ali Abdullah Saleh control Sanaa and have
withstood thousands of air strikes by a Saudi-led coalition.
After
UN-backed peace talks to end the war collapsed last week, the Houthis
and the GPC set up a governing council to rule the country despite UN
and government opposition. All of the present members of parliament voted for the new council.
The Saudi backed presidnet Abed Rabbo al Mansour Hadi denounced the parliamentary session as a "violation" of the
constitution and a "crime punishable by law", in remarks carried by the
official Yemeni Saba news website. "Whatever takes place at this meeting has no legal effects and cannot be implemented," he said.

According to the constitution, more than half of the 301-member
national assembly have to attend the session for voting to take place.

Thursday, August 11, 2016

Dutch authorities are investigating death threats against a Palestinian
rights activist in The Hague targeted because she has made submissions
to the International Criminal Court's inquiry into the 2014 Gaza
conflict. Nada Kiswanson, a legal researcher at Palestinian rights group
Al-Haq, said the threats began early this year and have continued on a
regular basis since. "My channels of communication have been totally compromised,"
Kiswanson told Reuters, adding that she had received death threats by
e-mail, via family members and in the form of flower deliveries to her
home with accompanying messages.
When she purchased an anonymous pre-paid mobile phone number,
she received a threat on it a day later. Messages had come in Dutch,
English and "broken Arabic", she said.
The Jordanian-Swedish citizen had also been called on a family
member's pre-paid Jordanian number while staying in the country, while a
relative in Sweden had been called and told that Kiswanson would be
"eliminated".
Human rights organization Amnesty International said it was
forced to temporarily close its office in The Hague for security reasons
after an employee's personal e-mail was hacked and used to send
Kiswanson a death threat.

Thursday, August 4, 2016

In an exclusive interview with Iranian state run media IRIB, Mohammad
Jafar Montazeri, the Attorney General of Iran, said 20 Sunni prisoners
were executed at Karaj's Rajai Shahr Prison (west of Tehran) on Tuesday
August 2, but he did not mention their identities. Earlier, the
Judiciary in the Kurdistan province had issued a statement about the
execution of a "group of convicts" for membership in "Sunni militant
groups". The statement did not mention the number of executions or the
identities of the prisoners. Iran Human Rights is further investigating
these executions and will be publishing an updated report.

Friday, July 29, 2016

Mohammed al Golani, the leader of the Nusra Front, now called Jabhat Fath al Sham.

Al Qaeda's powerful Syrian branch, the Nusra Front, announced on Thursday it was
ending its relationship with the global jihadist network founded by
Osama bin Laden, to remove a pretext used by world powers to attack
Syrians.The announcement
came as Russia and President Bashar al-Assad's government declared a
"humanitarian operation" in the besieged rebel-held sector of Aleppo,
opening "safe corridors" so people can flee Syria's most important
opposition stronghold.Washington
said that appeared to be an attempt to depopulate the city and make
fighters surrender. The opposition called it a euphemism for forced
displacement.In the first known
video statement ever to show his face, the leader of the Nusra Front,
Mohamad al-Golani, announced that the group would re-form under a new
name, with "no ties with any foreign party".The
move was being made "to remove the excuse used by the international
community -- spearheaded by America and Russia -- to bombard and
displace Muslims in the Levant: that they are targeting the Nusra Front
which is associated with al Qaeda," he said. The group would now be
called Jabhat Fatah al-Sham (Front for the Liberation of al Sham/Syria).

Sunday, July 24, 2016

Twin explosions
tore through a demonstration by members of Afghanistan's mainly Shi'ite
Hazara minority in Kabul on Saturday, killing at least 80 people and
wounding more than 230 in suicide attacks claimed by Islamic State.Graphic
television footage from the site of the attack showed many dead bodies
lying on the bloodied road, close to where thousands of Hazara had been
demonstrating against the route of a planned multi-million-dollar power
line."Two fighters from Islamic
State detonated explosive belts at a gathering of Shi'ites in the city
of Kabul in Afghanistan," said a brief statement on the group's Amaq
news agency.The explicit
reference to the Hazara's (from the eastern
province of Nangarhar) Shi'ite religious affiliation marked a
menacing departure for Afghanistan, where the bloody sectarian rivalry
between Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims typical of Iraq has been relatively
rare, despite decades of war. Islamic State is an ultra hardline Sunni
group.

Monday, July 11, 2016

Heavy fighting erupted again in South Sudan's capital on Monday a day after the U.N. Security Council told rivals President Salva Kiir andVice-President Riek Machar to rein in their forces and end days of violence that have left scores dead.
The capital has been mired in fighting almost every day since Thursday when troops loyal to Kiir and soldiers backing former rebel leader Machar first clashed.There has been no official death toll but at least five soldiers died on
Thursday and a Health Ministry source said 272 people, including 33 civilians, were killed on Friday. After a brief lull on Saturday, Sunday's fighting appeared even more fierce.
Shantal Persaud, spokeswoman for the U.N. mission UNMISS, told Reuters by telephone that gunfire had erupted on Monday around the U.N. headquarters in the Jebel area of Juba and also around a base near the airport. U.N. bases were hit by small arms and heavy weapons on Sunday.The Sudan Tribune adds that also sustained shooting have been heard in the areas of Gudele, Tongping near Juba airport. Shootings have also resumed at the airport area and sounds of heavy machine guns could be heard.

Thursday, July 7, 2016

Prime Minister Tony Blair led Britain into an
unsuccessful war in Iraq through a mix of flawed intelligence, "wholly
inadequate" planning and an exaggerated sense of the U.K.'s ability to
influence the United States, according to a damning official report on
the conflict that was published Wednesday.
The government-commissioned inquiry fell short of delivering what
many bereaved families sought — a declaration that the 2003 war was
illegal. But its 2.6 million words give the most comprehensive verdict
to date on the mistakes of a conflict whose violent aftershocks still
rattle the world.
Blair, however, stood by his decision to join U.S. President George W. Bush in toppling Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

"I believe I made the right decision and that the world is better and safer as a result of it," he said.

The decision to go to war was the most contentions act of Blair's
decade as prime minister between 1997 and 2007. By the time British
combat forces left Iraq in 2009, the conflict had killed 179 U.K.
troops, almost 4,500 U.S. personnel and more than 100,000 Iraqis.

Tuesday, July 5, 2016

Armed groups operating in Aleppo, Idlib and surrounding areas in the
north of Syria have carried out a chilling wave of abductions, torture
and summary killings, said Amnesty International in a new briefing
published today.The briefing ‘Torture was my punishment’: Abductions, torture and summary killings under armed group rule in Aleppo and Idleb, Syria offers
a rare glimpse of what life is really like in areas under the control
of armed opposition groups. Some of them are believed to have the
support of governments such as Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the USA
despite evidence that they are committing violations of international
humanitarian law (the laws of war). It also sheds light on the
administrative and quasi-judicial institutions set up by armed groups to
govern in these areas.“This briefing exposes the distressing reality for civilians
living under the control of some of the armed opposition groups in
Aleppo, Idlib and surrounding areas. Many civilians live in constant
fear of being abducted if they criticize the conduct of armed groups in
power or fail to abide by the strict rules that some have imposed,” said
Philip Luther, Director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme
at Amnesty International.

Four security officers have been killed and five others injured in a suicide
attack outside the Prophet's Mosque in Saudi Arabia's Medina, Islam's
second holiest city, the Saudi interior ministry said.
Photos on social media show smoke billowing from a fire outside the mosque. The blast occurred just before the Maghreb (sunset) prayers on Monday
when people were breaking their fast inside the mosque.
Saudi Arabia's state-run news channel, Al-Ekhbariya, aired live video
of thousands of worshippers praying inside the mosque hours after the
explosion. Around the same time as the Medina blast, two other explosions struck
near a mosque in the eastern city of Qatif on the Gulf coast, residents
said.
Witnesses said a suicide bomber blew himself up outside a Shia mosque without causing any other injuries.

Monday, July 4, 2016

Update: The death toll has reached 250 on Wednesday. It is the deadliest attack since the Americn invasion of 2003. the minister of the Interior has offred to resign.
Anger is growing in Baghdad over the government's failure to protect civilians, after a devastating bombing in a crowded commercial area in
the Iraqi capital killed more than 200 people, including many children.
The powerful explosion early on Sunday came near the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, when the streets were filled with young
people and families out after sunset. The death toll from the blast in Karada, a predominantly Shia neighbourhood in central Baghdad, rose to over 200 on Monday morning, as the bodies of more victims were pulled from the rubble.Hundreds were wounded when a lorry packed with explosives blew up in a busy shopping street filled with people after they had broken their fast.
The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (IS or ISIL)group claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement circulated by
its supporters online. The group, which has claimed numerous deadly bombings in mainly Shia areas of Baghdad, alleged that a suicide bomber targeted a crowd of Shia Muslims.

Wednesday, June 29, 2016

Popular Lebanese TV host Liliane Daoud was
arrested from her home in Cairo on Monday night, taken to an undisclosed
location and then put aboard an EgyptAir flight to Beirut, said Daoud’s lawyer Zyad Elelaimy.Eight members of the security forces stormed her home earlier that evening. It was the same day she ended her contract with ONtv.
The security forces refused to allow Daoud to make a phone call or to take her phone with her when they
apprehended her, Elelaimy said. Her Egyptian ex-husband, Khaled El-Berry, was coincidentally present at
her home during the arrest while picking up their ten-year-old daughter for dinner. "They gave [Daoud] exactly five minutes. They refused to allow her to take anything with her except her wallet. They also refused to let her
call a lawyer or the [Lebanese] embassy," El-Berry wrote on his Facebook account.

Tuesday, June 21, 2016

After the verdict lawyer Khaled Ali reads out the names of the people who are in prison because they demonstrated against the sale of the islands. (Photo Ahdaf Soueif/via Twitter)

Egypt's Administrative Court ruled on Tuesday that the 8 April agreement which placed the two Egyptian Red Sea islands of Tiran and Sanafir in Saudi waters is void. The two islands should remain under Egyptian sovereignty.
State Council Vice President Yehia El-Dakroury, reasoned that "the islands should remain part of Egyptian territory and within Egyptian borders; Egyptian sovereignty over the islands holds, and it forbidden to change their status for the benefit of any other state." The Egyptian state is going to appeal the conclusion of the court.
The agreement, which was signed by Egypt and Saudi Arabia during a five-day visit by Saudi King Salman to Cairo, stipulated that the two islands at the entrance of the Gulf of Aqaba fall within Saudi waters thus paving the way for a transfer of sovereignty to Riyadh.

Saturday, June 18, 2016

Iraq's Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced Friday that Iraqi forces have retaken most of
Fallujah from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (IS, Daesh). However operations are still under way to flush out the armed group's
remaining fighters in the city.
The government lost control of Fallujah in 2014, months before Daesh took Iraq's second largest city, Mosul, and other large parts of the country. "We promised you the liberation of Fallujah and we retook it. Our security forces control the city except for small pockets that need to
be cleared within the coming hours," Abadi said in a brief address on state TV. "Fallujah has returned to the nation and Mosul is the next battle,"
Abadi also said on Twitter. "Daesh will be defeated," he added.
Earlier on Friday, Iraqi forces said they had entered the centre of Fallujah, nearly four weeks after the start of a US-backed offensive to
retake the city 50km west of the capital, Baghdad. They took the government compound and the Iraqi flag is now raised on top of the building, symbolising government control

Saturday, June 11, 2016

Forces
loyal to Libya's internationally backed government say they have
recaptured both the port and airport of Sirte from the Islamic State of
Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), forcing the armed group to retreat. The Libyan forces also retook residential areas in the east of Sirte,
which for the past year has been the main ISIL base in the North
African country, a spokesman for the forces, Rida Issa, told the AFP
news agency on Saturday.
ISIL fighters are now surrounded in a densely populated area of
around five square kilometres inside the city, where they are laying
booby traps, he said. Most of the city's residents have fled but about 30,000 remain, Issa added.
The fall of Sirte, the hometown of ousted leader Muammar Gaddafi,
would be a major setback for ISIL, who have also lost territory in Syria
and Iraq, where they have declared a "caliphate".

A double bomb attack outside a Shia shrine near Syria's capital
Damascus has killed at least 12 people, according to Syrian state media.The official SANA news agency said on Saturday that a suicide bomber
and a car bomb struck at the entrance to the Sayeda Zeinab shrine, which
is revered by Shias around the world.
The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) claimed responsibility for the attacks via an online post. It said two of its suicide bombers
had blown themselves up and operatives had detonated an explosives-laden
car, according to the IS-affiliated Amaq news agency.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a British-based
monitoring group, reported a higher toll of at least 20 people killed
and 30 wounded.
Syrian state television showed debris, mangled cars and
wrecked shops in a main commercial thoroughfare near the Sayeda Zeinab
shrine, in an area where at least three bomb attacks claimed by Islamic
State have killed and wounded scores of people this year.

Sunday, June 5, 2016

In a hearing which took place on 29 May 2016, the Specialised Criminal Court (SCC) in Riyadh sentenced the Saudi human rights defender Abdulaziz Al-Shubaili to eight years in prison followed by another eight years of a travel ban to start after he serves his sentence. The court also decided that he is not allowed to write any more.

Abdulaziz Shubaili

l-Shubaili is a principal member of the Association for Civil and Political Rights in Saudi Arabia ACPRA, who participated in
the defence team on behalf of many of his fellow members of ACPRA. He also used social media networks to call for reform and defend people’s
rights.
Al Shubaili was accused of many charges including publishing a
statement calling for demonstrations; accusing judges of dishonesty and
human rights violations; and preparing, storing and sending data
affecting public order. On top of that he was sentenced for participating in ACPRA, which is an
unauthorised association in
Saudi Arabia, and his contribution to the drafting of its
statements, as well as failing to comply with the judicial decision to
dissolve ACPRA.

Monday, May 30, 2016

Manama: Bahrain’s Court of Appeals on Monday toughened a sentence
against Ali Salman, the secretary general of Al Wefaq Society, the most important opposition force in the country. It did this by including a charge dropped last year by a lower court.Under the new ruling,
Ali Salman will have to spend a total of nine years in jail after he was
also convicted of the more serious charge of “promoting the overthrow
of the political system through the use of force and threats.”

Monday, May 23, 2016

More than 100 people have been killed in multiple attacks claimed by
the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant group in strongholds of
President Bashar al-Assad's government in Syria, a monitoring group said.
Syrian state TV also reported the attacks, putting the death toll at 65.
Simultaneous car bombs and suicide bombers in bus stations, hospitals
and elsewhere in the coastal cities of Tartus and Jableh in Latakia
province on Monday appeared to severely breach Assad government
defences, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human
Rights.
Footage broadcast by the state-run Ikhbariya news channel of
what it said were scenes of the blasts in Jableh showed several twisted
and incinerated cars and minivans.
Pictures circulated by pro-Damascus social media users
showed dead bodies in the back of pick-up vans and charred body parts on
the ground.

Saturday, May 21, 2016

The Turkish Parliament has approved a controversial constitutional
amendment to lift the immunity of 139 MPs. Deputies from the
Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) are now expected to be arrested on terror-related charges and an
anticipated wave of social unrest.
Some 376 out of 550 deputies
voted in favor of the motion in the second and final vote on May 20,
comfortably passing the required 367 majority to have it approved
without the need to go to a referendum. The first and second clauses of the amendment were accepted in the second round of voting, with 373 and 374 votes respectively.
Proposed
by the 316-seat ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and heavily
backed by the 40-seat Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), the draft
received 357 votes in the first round of vote as the Republican People’s
Party (CHP) and the HDP deputies did not vote in favor.
However, it is believed that around 20 lawmakers from the CHP voted in favor of the motion in the second round in order not to cause a referendum that would jeopardize the societal order.

Friday, May 13, 2016

Hezbollah's top military commander Mustafa Badreddine has been killed in a blast at a
base near Damascus airport, the Lebanese Shi'ite group said on Friday,
one of the biggest blows to its leadership the Iranian-backed
organization has ever sustained.Hezbollah's
deputy leader Sheikh Naim Qassem said there were clear indications of
who was behind it, and the group would announce the outcome of its
investigation within hours. There was no immediate claim of
responsibility. At least one
Hezbollah figure blamed the group's age-old enemy Israel, which has
struck Hezbollah targets in Syria several times in the past. Israel declined to comment. Hezbollah
also has many other foes in Syria, where it fights in support of the
government of President Bashar al-Assad. Thousands
of Hezbollah fighters and leaders gathered at a mosque in Hezbollah's
stronghold in southern Beirut and gave Badreddine a military funeral,
waving Hezbollah flags. They chanted Shi'ite religious slogans, as well
as "Death to America" and "Death to Israel". Speaking at the funeral, Qassem also vowed that the group would continue on the "path" of Badreddine.In
a letter, Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif extended
condolences "for the martyrdom of this great jihadist.
Badreddine, 55, is believed to have been in charge of Hezbollah's military operations in Syria.He
is the most senior Hezbollah official killed since 2008 when his
brother-in-law, long-serving military commander Imad Mughniyeh, was
blown up by a bomb planted in his car in Damascus that Hezbollah blamed
on Israel.At least four
prominent figures in Hezbollah have been killed since January 2015. A
number of high-ranking Iranian officers have also been killed, either
fighting Syrian insurgents or in Israeli attacks.

Hezbollah said it was investigating whether
the explosion at the base was caused by an air strike, a
missile attack
or artillery bombardment. It did not say when he was killed.

Saturday, May 7, 2016

Erdem Gül (left) and Can Dündar. (Foto Milliyet)
Two prominent Turkish journalists were sentenced to at least five years in
jail for revealing state secrets on Friday, just hours after a gunman
tried to shoot one of them outside the courthouse in Istanbul. Can
Dündar, editor-in-chief of the opposition Cumhuriyet newspaper, who was
unscathed in the shooting, was given five years and 10 months. Erdem
Gül, the newspaper's Ankara bureau chief, was sentenced to five years.
They were acquitted of some other charges, including trying to topple
the government.The case, in which
President Tayyip Erdogan was named as a complainant, has brought
widespread condemnation from global rights groups.
Hours before the verdict was handed down, an assailant attempted to shoot Dündar. In full public view, before a courthouse.The man shouted "traitor" before firing at least two shots in quick succession. A reporter covering the trial appeared to have been wounded. The assailant was detained by police. "We experienced two assassination attempts in two hours: one by firearms, the other by law," Dündar told reporters following the trial."

Friday, May 6, 2016

An air strike on a camp for internally displaced Syrians near the country's border with Turkey has killed at least 30 people, activists said. The attack on the camp in Idlib province on Thursday also left dozens injured. A number of those killed were children, according to the UK-based Syrian Observatoryfor Human Rights.
The Observatory said the dead included women and children and the death toll from the air strikes was likely to rise. Al Jazeera's Zeina Khodr, reporting from the Turkish city of Gaziantep, said activists were split on whether Russian or Syrian planes were behind the attack.
"Many in the opposition believe that with strikes like this there's proof the government is not serious about the cessation of hostilities,"Khodr said.
In the night of Thursday to Friday rebels meanwhile seized a village from government forces near Aleppo overnight.

Ahmet Davutoglu, Turkey's prime minister and leader of the ruling AK Party, has said he will not seek a new term after last-ditch talks aimed
at easing tensions between him and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Davutoglu held a news conference on Thursday after a gathering of the party's central executive committee.
"I came to the conclusion [a change in] leader of the party and the Prime Ministerial position would serve a better purpose," he said. "This must be carried out in a peaceful way, keeping with the integrity of the party."
After a 90-minute crisis meeting on Wednesday that local media described as critical for Davutoglu's future, domestic news organisations CNN-Turk and NTV reported that an extraordinary congress would likely signal his exit. The congress will be held on May 22. Reports from Turkey suggest that Erdogan had demanded Davutoglu's resignation following yesterday's meeting. According to AKP convention, the posts of party boss and head of government always go to the same person.

Monday, May 2, 2016

The Agouza Criminal Court has sentenced 11
people to prison terms ranging between three and 12 years for
“practicing, inciting and publicizing immoral practices,” reported the privately owned al-Watan newspaper.
The
defendants were arrested from an apartment in Giza’s Agouza
neighborhood in September 2015. Following the court’s ruling, six of
them will spend nine years or more in prison. The court sentenced three
of those accused to 12 years, while another three were sentenced to 9
years. One defendant received a six-year term and the remaining four
have been sentenced to three years.
Head of the gender program at
the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights Dalia Abdel Hameed said the
case was indicative of the state’s practices in its ongoing crackdown on
LGBT individuals.
Abdel Hameed says that moral police targeted
one of the accused using a dating application, reportedly entrapping the
individual by posing as someone interested in a relationship. Through
the app’s messaging feature, they acquired the accused’s address
and then were granted permission by the public prosecutor to raid the
apartment.

Thursday, April 28, 2016

Palestinian writer, Rabai Al-Madhoun (70), is the winner of
the International prize for Arabic Fiction (the Arabic Booker
Prize) for his novel Destinies: Concerto of the Holocaust and the Nakba.
The announcement took place in an Abu Dhabi Hotel. In addition to winning $50,000, Rabai al-Madhoun is guaranteed an
English translation of his novel, as well as an increase in sales
and international recognition. The book is published by Maktabat Kul Shee (Haifa, Israel).
Al-Madhoun’s family came from Ashkelon, Palestine – now occupied by Israel – but went to the Gaza strip after the 1948 nakba exodus.
Leaving Gaza to attend Alexandria University, he later became involved
with the Palestinian liberation struggle as a member of the Democratic
Front for the Liberation of Palestine.He left activism in 1980 to focus on writing and has written a number
of works of fiction and non-fiction. This is the 70-year-old author’s
third novel.
His 2010 novel, The Lady from Tel Aviv, was shortlisted for
the 2010 International Prize for Arabic Fiction. It was also published in English in 2013 (Telegram Books) and won the
English PEN Writers in Translation award that year.

Tuesday, April 26, 2016

Saudi Arabia's cabinet has agreed on a broad-based economic reform
plan, known as Vision 2030, revealing how the oil-reliant state plans to
diversify its economy over the next 14 years.
Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the deputy crown prince, said on Monday
that the country was building up its public investment fund to become a
major player in global markets.
He said Saudi Arabia was restructuring its housing ministry to
increase the supply of affordable housing, and creating a "green card"
system within five years to give expatriates long-term residence.
Salman al-Ansari, founder and president of the Washington DC-based
Saudi American Public Relations Affairs Committee (SAPRAC), told Al
Jazeera the green card system gives more rights to expatriates to invest
in the country.
Saudi Arabia will also sell shares in state oil giant Aramco and set
up the world's largest wealth fund in line with the plan, Mohamed bin
Salman said separately in an interview with the Saudi-owned Al Arabiya
news channel.

More than
four-fifths of the U.S. Senate have signed a letter urging President
Barack Obama to quickly reach an agreement on a new defense aid package
for Israel worth more than the current $3 billion per year.Eighty-three
of the 100 senators signed the letter, led by Republican Lindsey Graham
and Democrat Chris Coons. Senator Ted Cruz, a 2016 presidential
candidate, was one of the 51 Republicans on board. The Senate's
Democratic White House hopeful, Bernie Sanders, was not among the 32 Democrats. "In light of Israel's
dramatically rising defense challenges, we stand ready to support a
substantially enhanced new long-term agreement to help provide Israel
the resources it requires to defend itself and preserve its qualitative
military edge," said the letter, which was first reported by Reuters.It
did not provide a figure for the suggested aid. Israel wants $4 billion
to $4.5 billion in aid in a new agreement to replace the current
memorandum of understanding, or MOU, which expires in 2018. U.S.
officials have given lower target figures of about $3.7 billion. They
hope for a new agreement before Obama leaves office in January.

Monday, April 25, 2016

Yemeni government troops and allies from a Saudi-led coalition have entered a city held by al-Qaeda for a year. Local Yemeni officials and residents told the Reuters new s agency on Sunday that some 2,000 Yemeni and Emirati troops advanced into Mukalla, taking control of its port and airport and setting up checkpoints throughout the southern city.
The coalition said in a statement,carried by the official Saudi news agency SPA, that "more than 800 al-Qaeda elements" had been killed and that the rest of the fighters had fled the city, the provincial capital of Hadramout.
The death toll could not be independently verified.And Iona Craig, a journalist who was in Mukalla last month and who said
she regularly communicates with residents there, described the coalition's claim as "ridiculous". "There weren't even 800 fighters left there," she told Al Jazeera by phone from the UK. "There was no fighting inside the city because
al-Qaeda had already left."

Jewish activists pushing for a third temple in Jerusalem attempted to ascend the Temple Mount carrying baby goats intended to be used as Passover sacrifices on Friday afternoon, as they do every year. Jerusalem police detained ten suspects in the Old City for interrogation, and seized four sacrificial goat kids.
Among those arrested were Kach activist Noam Federman from Hebron (who, as I Abu Pessoptimist, saw on the internet, is arrested every year for this reason the last couple of years), who attempts make the sacrifice every year, and Rafael Morris, an activist in the Temple Mount Faithful movement. The two were banned from entering Jerusalem before the holiday and will be questioned about breaching the ban.

Tuesday, April 19, 2016

Photo on social media of an overturned police car following the
shooting of three people by a policeman, killing one and
injuring two others.(Ahram Online).

A low-ranking Egyptian policeman shot three people in Egypt's New Cairo
on Tuesday following a quarrel, Al-Ahram Arabic news website reported,
killing one man and injuring two others.
Pictures and videos circulating on social media, apparently taken from
the scene in the Rehab neighbourhood, showed an overturned police van
with shattered windows.
Pictures of the corpse of the unidentified man killed were also circulated by social media users.

The interior ministry was not available for comment on the incident.
In February, a low-ranking policeman killed a driver in the
working-class Cairo district of El-Darb El-Ahmar, following a dispute
over a fare. In April a court sentenced the policeman to life in prison, one of the
harshest sentences issued to policemen convicted of similar violent
crimes. The sentence can still be appealed.

The Palestinian Authority is losing up to $285 million a year under
its current economic arrangements with Israel, the World Bank said on
Monday.
According to Ma’an News Agency, the global financial institution
announced the finding a day before it presents its full report to the Ad
Hoc Liaison committee, which decides on development assistance to the
Palestinian territories, in Brussels. It found that the current revenue
sharing arrangements as outlined by the Paris Protocol — through which
Israel collects VAT, import taxes and other revenues on behalf of the PA
— “have not been systematically implemented.”
The World Bank estimated that “tax leakages on bilateral trade with
Israel and undervaluation of Palestinian imports from third countries”
amounted to up to $285 million in revenues lost annually by the PA.It added that the amount could be higher, as it was unable to make
estimates for Area C — the 61 percent of the occupied West Bank under
full Israeli control — “due to data constraints.”

Sunday, April 17, 2016

Hundreds rallied in central Baghdad on Sunday in
support of powerful Shi'ite Muslim cleric Moqtada al-Sadr who has
threatened to call mass protests if the prime minister fails to name a
new cabinet to fight corruption by Tuesday. People
in Tahrir Square on Sunday said many more would join them if Prime
Minister Haider al-Abadi did not select a government mainly made up of
technical experts to tackle what they see as widespread graft and
mismanagement."Yes, yes to Iraq; no, no to corruption," they chanted, carrying Iraqi flags.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi's presented on 31 March a list of new
ministers in keeping with a deadline set by the legislature earlier in the week, which was underscored by a ''sit in'' in the Green Zone by Moqtada al-Sadr personally. The list was made up of independent professionals
who he hoped could free their ministries from the grip of dominant
political groups that have built their influence and wealth on a system
of patronage put in place since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003.

Tuesday, April 12, 2016

Egypt's announcement during a five-day visit by King Salman that it would transfer two Red Sea islands to its Saudi ally has outraged Egyptians, who took to social media to criticize the move, which now faces a legal challenge.The Egyptian
government said in a statement on Saturday that the two countries had signed maritime demarcation accords that put the islands of Tiran and Sanafir in Saudi waters, a process it said had taken six years.
Earlier, on Friday, after a meeting with Egyptian presidnt Abdel fattah al-Sisi, King Salman announced that a bridge connecting Egypt and Saudi Arabia would be built across the Red Sea. No details were given. Also Saudi Arabia is expected to sign a $20 billion deal to finance Egypt's oil needs for the next five years and a $1.5 billion deal to develop its Sinai region, two Egyptian government sources told Reuters.
Saudi and Egyptian officials said about the the islands thatb they belong to the kingdom and were only under Egyptian control because Saudi Arabia's founder, Abdulaziz Al Saud, asked Egypt in 1950 to protect them.

Saturday, April 9, 2016

Italy recalled
its ambassador to Egypt for consultations on Friday after Egyptian
investigators in Rome failed to provide evidence needed to solve the
mystery of the murder of an Italian student in Cairo. Ambassador
Maurizio Massari was called to the capital for "an urgent evaluation"
of what steps to take to "ascertain the truth about the barbaric murder
of Giulio Regeni", the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.Egyptian
authorities met with Rome prosecutors on Thursday and Friday, handing
over some, but not all, of the evidence Italy had requested. The
prosecutors said in a statement Egyptian investigators had still not
handed over such evidence as details from Cairo cell towers that had
connected to Regeni's mobile phone. Regeni,
28, vanished from the streets of Cairo on Jan. 25. His body was
discovered in a ditch on the outskirts of the Egyptian capital on Feb.
3, showing signs of extensive torture. Regeni's
mother said last week that her son's body had been so disfigured that
she had only been able to recognize him by the tip of his nose. Human rights groups
have said the torture indicates he was killed by Egyptian security
forces, an allegation Cairo has repeatedly denied.

Tuesday, April 5, 2016

Alaa Mubarak, the son of former
President Hosni Mubarak, is among the global political figures whose
financial dealings were exposed in the “Panama Papers,” a document leak said to be the largest in the history of journalism.
More
than 11 million documents were leaked from Panamanian law firm Mossack
Fonseca, which sells offshore companies to customers around the globe.
The leaked documents show how the firm helped clients dodge taxes,
launder money and evade sanctions. German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung,
which originally received the documents, shared them with a team of
journalists from around the world in cooperation with the International
Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ).

Saturday, March 12, 2016

A ten-year-old Palestinian was killed and his sister seriously injured
in an Israeli airstrike launched early Saturday in the northern Gaza
Strip after rockets were fired from the besieged enclave.
Spokesman
for the Gaza Ministry of Health Ashraf al-Qidra confirmed the death of
Yasin Suleiman Abu Khusah,10, and told Ma’an his six-year-old sister
Israa had sustained serious head injuries during the strike. Israa later died.
A
Ma’an reporter based in Gaza said the children were in their house at
the time of the strike, located in northwestern Beit Lahiya, adding that
the family was still living in their home that was partially destroyed
during the most recent Israeli offensive on the strip in 2014. Israa
was transferred to Shifa Medical Center in Gaza City from Indonesian
Hospital in Beit Lahiya due to critical injuries, al-Qidra said.
The Israeli army said the Israeli air force targeted four Hamas sites in
the northern Gaza Strip after four rockets were fired from the strip
Friday evening.

Wednesday, March 9, 2016

Israeli forces shot dead a 16-year-old Palestinian boy after he
allegedly attempted to carry out a stabbing attack at a military
checkpoint outside the blockaded village of al-Zawiya in Salfit district on Wednesday morning.
The incident in al-Zawiya occurred shortly after the Israeli police shot dead two Palestinians outside Jerusalem's
Old City after they opened fire in the area --
continuing a string of deadly encounters that shook Israel and the
occupied Palestinian territories a day earlier.
Israeli
police spokesperson Micky Rosenfeld said the two Palestinians initially
opened fire on an Israeli bus in the settlement of Ramot in occupied East Jerusalem, before fleeing the scene without causing any
injuries.The shooting sparked a massive manhunt across
Jerusalem, with Israeli police later spotting the car outside the Old
City's New Gate. Rosenfeld said that a gun battle erupted
between Israeli police and the two Palestinians, with both gunmen shot
dead. They were later identified as Abdul-Malak Saleh Abu Kharoub,19,
and Muhammad Jamal al-Kalouti, 21. A Palestinian bystander
was also shot in the head in the crossfire.

Tuesday, March 8, 2016

Four Palestinians were shot dead after they allegedly carried out
separate attacks in Israel and occupied East Jerusalem, killing one
tourist from the U.S. and wounding at least 12 others, on Tuesday morning, afternoon and evening.
In the first deadly encounter, shortly before 5
p.m., Israeli police spokesperson Luba al-Samri said a Palestinian man
was shot dead after he allegedly stabbed and wounded an Israeli man near
Petah Tikva, around seven miles east of Tel Aviv.Al-Samri
said that an "Arab terrorist" stabbed a Jewish Israeli in his mid-30s
"in the upper part of his body," leaving him with light to moderate
injuries.Israeli police forces arrived on the scene and
shot dead the Palestinian, she said, adding that Israeli forces closed
the area for investigation.
Minutes later, another
Palestinian was shot dead after allegedly firing gunshots at Israeli
police forces near Salah al-Din Street in occupied East Jerusalem,
injuring two Israeli officers.Israeli police spokesperson
Micky Rosenfeld said two Israeli policemen were wounded when a
Palestinian shot them with an automatic weapon.

Israeli members of parliament (the Knesset) renewed their cries that Arab representatives have to be removed after the parties
Balad and Hadash, who are part of the Joint Arab List, Monday
criticized the decision of the Gulf Cooperation Council to label Hezbollah a terrorist organization.
"Hezbollah fights against Israeli attacks on Lebanon, and this
decision only serves the interests of Israel and the US," a Balad spokesperson said.
The GCC officially decided to label Hezbollah as a terrorist organization last Wednesday. Balad officials explained that they view the decision by the interior
ministers of the GCC as dangerous because they are fueling the
Sunni-Shia conflict, and adding fuel to the fire of
this bloody conflict. Furthermore, the Balad officials claimed, the
decision serves to widen the sectarian divisions in Lebanon, Syria, and
the wider Arab world.
They also said that "the party doesn't believe that it is
correct to tag Hezbollah - an organization which represents a large part
of the Lebanese nation - as a terrorist organization, despite criticism
over its participation in the fighting in Syria."

Sunday, March 6, 2016

Prominent Sudanese politician Hassan
al-Turabi, a veteran Islamist and leader of the opposition Popular
Congress Party (PCP), has died at the age of 84, medical sources said on Saturday.Turabi, one of
the country's most influential political figures, formed the PCP in 1999
to challenge long-serving President Omar al-Bashir and his ruling
National Congress Party, with which Turabi had previously been aligned.He was rushed to hospital earlier on Saturday after suffering a heart attack, the sources said.
Turabi was elected speaker of
parliament in 1996 and was close to Bashir before a bitter power
struggle and split in 1999.

Saturday, March 5, 2016

“The
sinister fact about literary censorship in England is that it is
largely voluntary”, George Orwell noted
in his censored preface to his 1945 book Animal Farm. “Unpopular
ideas can be silenced, and inconvenient facts kept dark, without the
need for any official ban”. Orwell went onto explain that “at any
given moment there is an orthodoxy, a body of ideas which it is
assumed that all right-thinking people will accept without question.
It is not exactly forbidden to say this, that or the other, but it is
‘not done’ to say it”.
The
corporate media’s ‘coverage’ of Syria adds a twist to Orwell’s
dictum – inconvenient reports and facts do occasionally appear in
respected newspapers and on popular news programmes but they are
invariably ignored, decontextualised or not followed up on. Rather
than informing the historical record, public opinion and government
policy these snippets of essential information are effectively thrown
down the memory hole.
Instead
the public is fed a steady diet of simplistic, Western-friendly
propaganda, a key strand of which is that the US has, as Channel 4
News’s Paul Mason blindly asserted
in January 2016, “stood
aloof from the Syrian conflict”.
This deeply ingrained ignorance was taken to comical lengths when
Mason’s Channel 4 News colleague Cathy Newman interviewed
the former senior US State Department official Anne-Marie Slaughter,
with both women agreeing the US had not armed the insurgency in
Syria.
In
the real world the US has been helping
to arm the insurgency since 2012, with US officials telling
the Washington Post in last year that the CIA’s $1bn programme had
trained and equipped 10,000 rebel fighters. “From the moment the
CIA operation was started, Saudi money supported it”, notes
the New York Times. According
to the former American Ambassador to Syria, the US "has looked
the other way" while fighters it has backed have "coordinated
in military operations" with the Al-Nusra Front, Al-Qaeda’s
official affiliate in Syria. The UK, of course, has obediently
followed its master into the gates of hell, with the former UK
Ambassador to Syria recently explaining
the UK has made things worse by fuelling the conflict in Syria.

Wednesday, February 17, 2016

One of the most famous Egyptian journalists, authors and political commentators, Mohamed Hassanein Heikal, died this Wednesday aged 92. According to sources around him three weeks ago his health started to deteriorate as a result of kidney failure.
Heikal was born in 1923 and started his career as a journalist in the fall of 1942 at the Egyptian Gazette. His breakthrough came with his coverage of the WWII Battle of Al-Alamein. He later moved on to join the most established editor of the time, Mohamed El-Tabei, in the then most widely-circulated paper Akhr Saa. Lateron he joined Akhbar Al-Youm of the Amin-brothers.
His real fame came under president Gamal Abdel Nasser, whom he helped to to coin his pan-Arabic ideology and whom he served as a close adviser. Heikal became editor-in-chief of the state-owned Al-Ahram newspaper for 14 years starting in the year 1957. Also served four years starting in 1970 as Information Minister before returning to journalism.